12 December 2015

Who will win the Heisman Trophy for 2015?

(Cary Edmondson - USA TODAY Sports)

The Heisman race comes to a conclusion tonight at the Downtown Athletic Club in New York. Three players remain (Alabama's Derrick Henry, Clemson's Deshaun Watson and Stanford's Christian McCaffery) but there can only be one. Who will be striking the pose and winning the iconic trophy tonight? Here are my thoughts.
All three would be deserving winners in my opinion but while it seems that Henry may be a slight favorite going into tonight, he would be ranked third on a hypothetical B-Flo 360 ballot. There is no question that he has had a terrific season and is the core piece of an Alabama offense that is in the championship mix once again, but so much of his production has been the result of terrific offensive line play, and the fact that Alabama's offense is predicated on giving him so many carries. Henry leads the nation by far in carries with 20 more than the runner-up, McCaffery. Quite frankly, I look at Leonard Fournette's season as being more impressive even as he struggled in a matchup head-to-head with Alabama.

That leaves me deciding between Watson and McCaffery. Watson is the most important player on the best team, and he had a spectacular season even as the Tigers had to replace wunderkind offensive coordinator Chad Morris in the offseason. Watson's numbers may not blow you away as some other spread quarterbacks do but he not only excelled down the stretch as Clemson was trying to finish off an undefeated campaign, he also was brilliant in Clemson's three victories over top team clubs.

But in the end, I have to go with McCaffery. McCaffery has had the greatest all-purpose season of all time, which makes sense considering he has blown away Barry Sanders's 1988 all-purpose yardage record by over 200 yards. He also has over 1,000 more total yards than anybody else and is the only player in the country to both lead his team in rushing and receiving yards (and for a pretty solid team to boot). And while some folks could scoff at the return yardage, nobody discounted it when Reggie Bush won the Heisman a decade ago. His spectacular output is precisely why McCaffery should win the Heisman.